


Snow White Queen

by timehopper



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Dark Claude von Riegan, Execution, F/M, Manipulation, Unhappy Ending, Vaginal Sex, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 06:28:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28466808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timehopper/pseuds/timehopper
Summary: Claude loses everything at Derdriu. As he awaits execution, Edelgard decides to pay him a visit.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	Snow White Queen

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, this was requested for my Spotify Top 100 ficlets on Twitter. I was asked to write Edelclaude using the 69th song on my top 100 playlist, which was "Snow White Queen" by Evanescence, as the title implies. (Yeah, I still listen to Evanescense in 2020/2021, what of it.) I ended up liking the ficlet so much, though, I decided to go ahead and clean it up/expand it and publish it as a full fic. I just... I fucking love Edelclaude. It's so perfect for angst and whump.
> 
>  **!! PLEASE MIND THE TAGS AND WARNINGS. !!** In case you missed them, this fic deals with the topic of execution, which means that it contains Major Character Death. Claude is also... not particularly nice in this. He's got nothing left to lose, so...
> 
> In any case -- please proceed carefully! If character death and/or dark!Claude are things that upset you, then I recommend you do not proceed with this fic.

Visiting Claude is a mistake. Edelgard knows this as sure as she knows her own mind. She tells herself it’s a mistake over and over again as she descends the steps to the depth of Castle Riegan’s dungeons, and reminds herself of it once more when she arrives at last in front of his cell. 

She steps forth, looking straight ahead. Claude sits on the floor beside the single cot in his cell, He’s slumped against the back wall, head hanging low and hiding his face from the torchlight flickering along the wall. 

It’s… strange, seeing him like this. No smile on his face, no joke on his lips. There’s nothing left of the proud, unflappable mask he had worn during the battle at Derdriu, no trace of the facade he’d worn on the day he had lost everything. 

Something twists in Edelgard’s gut, freezing the blood in her veins even as she continues her march toward him. He doesn’t look up at her, though -- not until the final click of her heels against the stone floor resounds through the room.

When Edelgard stops walking, pausing a mere three paces before the bars of his cell, Claude looks up at her. He raises his head to take in the appearance of the woman who will end his life, and rests his head against the wall.

“Well, if it isn’t the imperial princess herself,” he says. There’s an echo of a smile in his voice, though he does not wear one on his face now. It’s the first of many things that should send Edelgard running, should snap her back to herself and remind her that this man is dangerous. 

Instead, she continues forward. 

“I am no longer a princess,” she says. Claude’s eyes meet hers, then drop abruptly, lingering on her chest before moving down, down, down, and then back up to her face -- to her eyes.

“Princess suits you better,” he says simply. Insolently. He stands up at last, slow and stiff from sitting on the stone floor, and walks to the cell door. His hands curl over the bars. He leans forward.

There, at last, is that smile of his: the one that tells her he’s planning something, the one that lights up his face but not his eyes. 

“Come to tell me you’ve changed your mind?” he asks. His eyes bore into hers, looking but not seeing. Searching, finding, disregarding. 

“No,” Edelgard answers, steadfast and stalwart. “You’re too dangerous to let live.” 

Claude hums. “I thought so.” 

He doesn’t seem surprised, nor does he seem particularly upset. He leans farther forward, face resting against the bars. “Then you’ve come to grant me one final request, I take it.” 

He reaches for her, hand slipping between the bars. She simply gazes at it a moment, debating. Taking it is a mistake. She knows it is.

And yet, in that moment, she sees something of herself in him. She sees herself reaching out to someone who had never been there to help, a silent plea for mercy in the midst of endless suffering. She sees Claude’s drive to continue, to take what he wants even despite insurmountable odds, to rise above and overcome the hand he’s been dealt.

Claude has always been a fighter. She had known that of him then, and she knows that of him now, even as he walks toward the end of his life. 

She takes his hand. 

He pulls her to him gently, leading rather than forcing. His smile grows as she draws near, and for a moment, it almost looks real. The hand that held Edelgard’s slips from her grasp to caress her face, and he pushes a lock of hair behind her ear, his calloused fingers and broken nails brushing against the horns of her crown. 

“You know,” he starts, his voice soft. “I wasn’t lying when I said you’ve grown lovelier than ever.” 

And maybe that’s what does it for Edelgard, in the end. Maybe that’s what finally pushes her to lean in and kiss Claude, her hand curling over his as she meets his lips between the bars.

Claude kisses her slowly, as if savouring her. It’s chaste, and soft, and far too gentle for a man about to die. She had expected more fire, more fight -- but perhaps the last of that had been snuffed out after all, when she had taken Derdriu, and Claude’s dreams, away from him. 

They pull apart. Edelgard moves to the door. She unlocks the cell and enters it, allowing Claude to take her hand and lead her to the back of it. 

“Why?” she whispers as he pulls her down atop him. Claude silences her with another kiss, his hands moving to the clasps on her dress, undoing them one by one. 

“You know I hate losing,” he tells her. She does not understand, but when his mouth finds her breast and his lips close around her nipple, she finds she does not care to. 

They make love on the cell floor, Claude on his knees and Edelgard in his lap. They kiss as though they are both on borrowed time, though they both know it is only Claude who is. Even Claude, schemer and fighter that he is, would not risk anything this late in the game -- not when Edelgard is his only hope of granting his lifelong wish. 

And so she gives, and Claude takes, and takes, and takes. His hands tangle in her hair and under her crown; it clatters to the floor, forgotten, as she presses her chest to his sinks down on his cock. Their tongues dance between their parted lips, breath mingling as Edelgard rocks against him, as Claude scrapes his nails down her back and mouths at her exposed neck. 

He reaches her ear, and his teeth drag against the shell of it, tugging it between his teeth. “Almyra won’t stand for my death,” he whispers, his breath hot against her skin. Edelgard shivers despite it; her eyes squeeze shut and her fingers curl and dig into Claude’s arms where she clings to him. “Are you prepared to fight a war on two fronts?” 

He thrusts up into her. Edelgard gasps, and her head falls back, eyes opening to the cell’s dark stone ceiling. She bites her lip and pulls herself together, lowering her gaze back down to Claude. 

“I will do whatever it takes to set Fódlan on the right path.” 

Claude smiles. It does not reach his eyes. “That’s what I love about you, Edelgard.” He rakes a hand down her back and she arches into him, crying out as it forces him deeper, deeper. “We could have been so good together.”

He’s quiet after that. The only sounds to fill the silence are the sounds of their lovemaking: Edelgard’s stuttered breaths and rising whines, Claude’s quiet sighs, the sound of their skin meeting over and over and over again, slapping together as Edelgard relentlessly fucks herself on his cock. 

And when it’s finished, fluid dripping between Edelgard’s legs and trickling down her thighs, Claude throws her down and cleans her up, tongue lapping up every drop of spend -- hers and his alike. He comes away wet, chin glistening, and crawls over Edelgard to kiss her. 

She tastes herself on his tongue, and wonders if, in some twisted way, this is what Claude had wanted all along. 

When at last he leaves her, there’s no trace of a smile on Claude’s face. 

“Something to remember me by,” he says, pulling his shirt back on. And when Claude turns to her, half-dressed from the waist up, his eyes are empty -- devoid of anger, or hatred, or anything resembling affection. “One way or another, my dream will come true. Whether you grant it or not, I’ll have what I want in the end.” 

She stands. Stumbles. Her legs are weak; her vision swims. Claude walks over to her, places a hand on her cheek, and leans in to whisper in her ear: “You’re mine now, Edelgard. And you always will be.” 

* * *

The day of Claude’s execution arrives with a cold wind and little fanfare. 

Edelgard stands in the centre of Derdriu’s town square, looking out at the small crowd that has formed to witness Duke Riegan’s death. She waits atop a platform she can only guess was erected as a stage on which celebrations were held. But this is no happy occasion the people are celebrating today: today they are here to witness the execution of their leader and the absorption of the Leicester Alliance back into the Adrestian Empire. 

Despite the crowd, the city remains eerily silent. Edelgard does not like it. She does not like any of this. But, like everything else in this war, it is a necessary evil, and one she must face with dignity.

She remains stoic even as Claude is led up onto the stage. He meets her gaze head on, standing tall despite his wrists bound together behind his back. Even now, moments before his death, he carries himself with all the dignity of a Duke: head held high, expression carefully neutral, posture perfectly straight. 

The soldiers leading him along let him go. Claude turns to the crowd and stands before them, a smile on his face. Unafraid -- or so it seems. Edelgard alone is close enough to him to see the slight tremor in his shoulders that betrays his true feelings. 

She calls his name: “Claude von Riegan.” 

He steps forward. Hundreds, thousands of eyes follow his every step, watch him as he falls to his knees in front of Emperor Edelgard. He gazes out at the crowd, head held high, and at last, he cracks a smile. 

And then he laughs. 

Claude laughs, and he laughs, and he laughs. He laughs until he can’t anymore, until tears spill from his eyes, until it’s hard to tell if those tears are from fear, from mirth, or from something, at last, breaking within him. And when he stops, breathless and rasping, he beams at the crowd.

Claude opens his mouth, turns his gaze skyward, and shouts: “Long live Emperor Edelgard!”

Edelgard raises Aymr. And for one long, breathless moment, she wonders if this will all be worth it. If she will ever forget the look on his face, wild and terrified, as he meets her eyes for the last time.

“Long live Emperor Edelgard.”

Aymr comes down on his neck, and that is the last thing Claude von Riegan ever says.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this and think you might like to see more, have a chat, or would like to get to know me, please check out my twitter [@tim3hopp3r](https://twitter.com/tim3hopp3r).
> 
> And if you would like to find out how to support me, I have a handy list of links right [here](https://twitter.com/tim3hopp3r/status/1355219789560471554). Please check it out! I wouldn't be able to do this without people like you supporting me. ♥


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